January 29, 2016

January 29, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

George Washington reportedly said to the Constitutional Convention delegates “If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our world. Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hands of God.”  He was trying to say something about the necessity and consistency of how things had to be framed. Due to his growing up he must have had many instances of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) which made him focus on what the Founders as well as the people agree on, but which also allowed him to acknowledge and anticipate the likelihood of discord between the government and the governed, which is, of course, is a version of Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

Washington was in his own way trying to point out the need to identify NVB and to go back to SVB, to “repair” the agreement if it got lost as that is the “wise and honest” thing to do.  However, this is not a matter of defending “our world”, but of having no need to defend, as SVB can only occur in the absence of aversive stimulation. Thus, SVB is not and “event” that “is in the hands of God”, to the contrary, it is a natural phenomenon which humans either accomplish or fail to accomplish. 

Stated differently, “the wise and honest”, which couldn't be anyone else but behavioral scientists, either are really knowledgeable about behavior and therefore “can repair” or these behavioral engineers are humble enough to accept that they don’t know and can’t repair the interactions between the government and the governed. There is no place for “God” in this picture as we are talking about what human beings do each other. 

Without SVB neither the government nor the people are capable of controlling themselves. In “The Federalist” (essays by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison) it is written “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls of government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Certainly,  “angels” and “God” have nothing to do with control of behavior, but neither has “internal” control or the causation of behavior by an inner self.

January 28, 2016

January 28, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

If you were a student in the class where I yesterday did a presentation, you would have experienced the sound of my voice. This can’t be accomplished with written words, but it can still be described. I spoke to this group of students as I had first spoken with their teacher. In our brief conversation, she had become so excited and intrigued that she had invited me. The class was well-prepared and when I arrived all her students were present. Initially she had said my presentation could last about twenty minutes to half an hour, but the interaction with her class went so well that she signaled me to continue and complete the whole hour. 

I had made a hand-out which was visible on the screen and I read part of what I said from what I had already written. This gave me a focus which made my presentation more powerful. I could see, hear and feel that everyone was really impressed. The questions that were raised and the remarks that were made were all meaningful and making things even more clear. As I explained the difference between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) the students became more involved. Since I had written down the main points, the words I spoke came out in an organized, succinct and powerful manner. 

I had sent her the hand-out in an email attachment, but for some reason she wasn’t able to open it.  Because of this I pulled up the email and we read it together from the big screen. Perhaps this was a lucky coincidence and things might have been very different if students would have had the hand-out in their hands. They were reading from the screen with me and when they were asking questions and making remarks they rephrased what they read on the screen. Also, the fact that this teacher allowed me to keep going for the entire duration of her class gave me a sense of confidence and approval. I just received an email from her in which she stated that she had been thinking about these matters her entire life and that my analysis had made things clear to her which had never been clear to her before.  She thanked me and stated that I had put into words an important process which could only be understood in the behavioristic way in which I had explained it.

January 27, 2016

January 27, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In his book “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” (1971, p. 61) Skinner explains “This strange state of affairs can be understood only by looking at the way in which organisms respond to punitive contingencies”(Italics added). It is not so strange that especially people “who defend freedom and dignity” emphasize punishment of unwanted behavior by others, because they find that to be reinforcing. Since they don’t include listening as an observing behavior in their study of punitive contingencies, they continue the false belief in holding a person accountable for his or her criminal behavior. However, in the long-term punishment doesn’t decrease criminal behavior. Although in the short-term punishment results into a decrease of unwanted behavior, in the long-term the punished person will misbehave as he or she gets better at escaping and avoiding the punishment. 

As these short-term consequences are incredibly reinforcing to the punisher, the punishment behavior is increased. The common belief is that “a person who has been punished is less likely to behave in the same way again”, but this is simply not true.  Moreover, as long as we only look at what a person does, rather than listen to what a person says in response to what we say, we will never get clear on the true role that is played by our verbal behavior in punishment procedures. 

Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is a punishment procedure in which the speaker aversively influences the listener with the sound of his voice.  When the speaker coerces the listener into compliance by communicating his presumed authority or superiority, the speaker is reinforced for punishing the listener and because of this “strange state of affairs” the punished listener is always only getting better at escaping and avoiding the punishing speaker over time. However, when the punishing speaker listens to himself while he speaks, he will notice that he is having this effect on the listener, because he is now himself that listener.  When a speaker notices that he is punishing himself by expressing a certain voice, there instantly occurs a change of his sound due to which he is able to produce Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in which his voice becomes reinforcing to him and others. 

January 26, 2016

January 26, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In his book “Freedom and Dignity” (1971, p. 58) Skinner writes “We recognize a person’s dignity or worth when we give him credit for what he has done. The amount we give is inversely proportional to the conspicuousness of the causes of his behavior.” The word conspicuous comes from the Latin verb conspicere, which means “to look at.” Since the cause of someone’s behavior is often not easy to see or notice, we are inclined to attribute the behavior to the individual, who is visible.  We then say that someone is attractive, intelligent or impressive.  In each case, we make the mistake of giving credit to what the person presumably has done, while in reality he was only able to do what he did because he was in an environment which stimulated him to do what he did. We should take note here of our mistake of attributing the invisible causation of behavior to a visible person. 

Skinner states “we try to gain additional credit by concealing the reasons why we behave in given ways or by claiming to have acted for less powerful reasons.” When we say a person is hiding his feelings, we think we refer to the obfuscation of the cause of his behavior. However, any talking in which we credit a person for what he has done will be Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) as it prevents us from discriminating the environmental independent variables of which his behavior is a function. As long as we are looking instead of listening for these variables, we are not going to be able to find them. In NVB, because we don’t listen to how we sound while we speak, we get carried by what we say, and, consequently, we maintain the belief that an inner self is responsible for causing our behavior. 

When we say, ‘his voice gave him away’, we mean his sound was more veridical and was telling us more about the cause of his behavior than his words.  The word veridical comes from the Latin verb veridicus, which means us (ver) true + i + (dicus) speaking. In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) we listen while we speak to the environmental variables which cause us to communicate the way we do.  In doing so, we speak the truth. We are not communicating the way we do because we are causing our own behavior; we are communicating the way we acknowledge that we are each other’s environment and are having a positive effect on each other!

January 25, 2016

January 25, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In his book “Freedom and Dignity” (1971, p. 25) Skinner explains that “a scientific analysis shifts both the responsibility and the achievement to the environment.” His writing is a form of public speech and a teacher will speak about behaviorism with his or her students.  Depending, however, on whether this teacher finds him or herself in a hostile or safe environment, he or she will teach about behaviorism in a Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) or a Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) manner.  

These two different ways of teaching will select different behaviors in students. Those who were taught in a NVB manner acquire different values and use behavioral technology to another end than those who were taught in a SVB manner.  Someone who was taught in a SVB manner will not be interested in power and prestige. He or she will turn away from such harmful stimuli, which are ubiquitous in academia. This operant conditioning process is called negative reinforcement as avoidance and escape behaviors occur in environments which aversively affect the organism.  Behaviorists who were taught in a NVB manner aren’t even aware of how they are affected by negative environments, yet, they are continuously struggling. In spite of their behavioristic knowledge they act just like everyone else: as if their behavior is caused by an autonomous self. 

On the other hand, if one was taught behaviorism in a SVB fashion, avoidance behavior would be emphasized as the royal path to relationship, sanity and health.  Skinner’s life signified that he was not interested in constructs like self and freedom, which don’t explain behavior. His explanation of freedom as a biological mechanism to reduce aversive stimulation becomes apparent if we apply it to how we communicate.  We all have a natural tendency to turn away from NVB. Denial of this and other natural human tendencies cause us enormous problems.  Skinner is absolutely correct in stating “the struggle for freedom is mainly directed toward intentional controllers – toward those who treat others aversively in order to induce them to behave in particular ways.”  We have not yet fully acknowledged how others condition us to remain in their NVB environments.